If you have 541 items, you'll get the following stats in challenge mode:
Example: 600hit + 600 crit = 600hit + 300crit in CM.
Second item can have 600crit + 600 mastery, in CM you'll have 300crit + 300mastery, which is still 300more crit & still have the hitcap.

3rd Example: The heroic Expertise trinket grants me 1600expertise in CM; The valorpoint trinket grants me about 1600hit.
That means I have about 2000more secondary stats than a 463 blue equiped person.

For me, as a hunter, that would be about ~3000dps more. For a fury warrior its probably about 9000dps more.

If I even equip the bow from tortos with expertise & hit, I'd be capped with 3items or 6 secondarystats.
With 463 blue items, I'd have to sacrifice about ~14 secondarystats.

Yet virtually all top times, and most of the ones close to them, are from people using specifically chosen 463 gear.

I hardly doubt that as well. For one: you can get over TWENTY extra sockets on your gear -> that's 6000 additional benefical secondary stats (or over 3000 mainstat) which isn't a small number after all, add that your 5100 hit won't get reduced is a huge bonus as well - in total we're talking about an insane difference. Or tank PoV: it's a 100k hitpoints buffer difference, yum yum!

They should just disable all sockets above a certain treshold, the end.

Hey, I'm from Ask Mr. Robot. We want to add this as an option for people. The hardest part is figuring out what the scaling formulas and rules are. I know SimC made an educated guess. If anyone has extra info to point me too, that will be helpful. Once we know the formulas & rules, the hardest part will be figuring out where to put the 'challenge mode' button

The whole idea is to make higher ilvl gear not be more terribly more attractive. It is (in general), but only very slightly. Though unfortunately, it's getting to the point where even that "slight" amount isn't so slight anymore (another discussion here).

The whole idea is to make higher ilvl gear not be more terribly more attractive. It is (in general), but only very slightly. Though unfortunately, it's getting to the point where even that "slight" amount isn't so slight anymore (another discussion here).

Ah well, didnt know that. Thought that was the reason I did back in October 65k dps at Final Mogu Boss & in February 75. But your link seems to describe this problem.

Originally Posted by Larynx

For more overused and misunderstood terminology in MMOs, see: Pay to Win, Casual, Hardcore, Carrot on a Stick, Ganking, Trolling

Hey, I'm from Ask Mr. Robot. We want to add this as an option for people. The hardest part is figuring out what the scaling formulas and rules are. I know SimC made an educated guess. If anyone has extra info to point me too, that will be helpful. Once we know the formulas & rules, the hardest part will be figuring out where to put the 'challenge mode' button

Awesome!

I´ll do some testing and try to figure the formulas out :P

I'm still wondering about the prince extra socket thing, since belt buckles and such aren't removed I'd guess this wouldn't as well? But then again the prince socket is only for sha touched weps and ToT weps.

The irony of caring about gear in mode designed about not having to worry about gear.

Lots of truth to this. Once you get to the minimum level for what you need gear matters less than coordinated and really tight play. It can help a bit and you should continue to do what you're doing but don't overly obsess about it. If you're of a mind that the way to success in challenge mode dungeons is gear (as it is for the most part everywhere else in the game), you're liable to be a bit disappointed.

I tested this back in 5.1 and the extra multi-colored socket does work in Challenge Modes. I even went in without anything in the socket and gemmed it in the instance and saw a ~160 intellect increase from a Brilliant gem.

Also, I'd take that article with a grain of salt considering it was from July of 2012 before MoP was even released. I do not believe that this system is actually took effect. From my personal experience, I believe this system to never have been implemented.

Since there are no ilvl 463 Epic items, the least item qualety epics are ilvl 476 random scenario items, the answer is NO ilvl 463 items are blue, have a lower stat budget then epic items and are therefore not good for challange modes.

to be fair, as of this post I'm ranked 1 in the world in CMs, (according to wowprogress) and I don't have any gear below 476, and most of my gear is 500+. ilvl do matter for socketed gear, and ToT trinkets are OP

Hey, I'm from Ask Mr. Robot. We want to add this as an option for people. The hardest part is figuring out what the scaling formulas and rules are. I know SimC made an educated guess. If anyone has extra info to point me too, that will be helpful. Once we know the formulas & rules, the hardest part will be figuring out where to put the 'challenge mode' button

Lots of truth to this. Once you get to the minimum level for what you need gear matters less than coordinated and really tight play. It can help a bit and you should continue to do what you're doing but don't overly obsess about it. If you're of a mind that the way to success in challenge mode dungeons is gear (as it is for the most part everywhere else in the game), you're liable to be a bit disappointed.

Your comment makes no sense. Of course, gear doesn't matter much when doing Challenge Mode. You can do it with very suboptimal setups and with lot of 450 items. The idea here, at least the way it appears to me, is about optimization, to get the best result possible, as that goes through having the best gear as well as other factors.

Well, I just remember that once I was trying a blue Helmet with a 180int socket bonus over the 522 set helm with the 180 crit socket bonus and I lost like 60 int and secondary stats.

But I have to go home to proof that.

Although I do think there is a "perfect" challange mode set for each class, or lets call it the "best you can get" challange mode set.

Personally I dont have "really good" challange mode times... but that in my opinion more a problem of the class combo in which we did them.

Never ever do them with a Guardian Druid, Retri Pala, Holy Pala, Mage, Elemental sham...

I really think guardian druid is the worst you can get in challange modes... close to no mobilety, no stun immunety, no really great at ae tanking... and best thing is... if stunned = dead.

I've been our #1 dps by a wide margin (ele shaman) on most runs so far. Having a frost mage alt, I don't doubt I would be very close to my ele's numbers with that toon. Both specs can do loads of AoE damage, which is king.

If anything, CMs feel a bit more ranged friendly. I think they are doable with mostly any comp, but it's better to max one for either caster dps or physical dps.

How will they alter the current Challenge Modes in the next expansion so that people who want the gear can still get it, but also so that it's not super easy because of the 5 level increase players will have?

How will they alter the current Challenge Modes in the next expansion so that people who want the gear can still get it, but also so that it's not super easy because of the 5 level increase players will have?

I'm sure current challenge modes will be "locked", sort of like the end of a PvP season, but instead a challenge mode season. And the new expansion will of course bring new dungeons, with challenge mode difficulties.

They've never really supported making any sort of old content terribly relevant, I see no reason why they'd re-tune current CM's to the next level cap. You might still be able to enter them on that difficulty, but any record times would be ignored.

I find the topic of special gear farming quite fun to play around with. I have been constructing a CM set for my hunter based on the principle that has been brought up in this thread for a long while now. Saving every "optimal" gear piece since 476 items.

Gemslots are damn good, I have a pair of wrists from Tortos that nets me over 120 more agility compared to the 522 non gemslotted ones when they both are scaled down. The gemslots really add up with the insane amount of them in ToT and maybe in total gives me more then 1k more agility compared to the first set I wore into CMs.

As an example the special CM set gives me more the 4% more crit then my regular downscaled 522 raidgear. 4% crit together with the over 2k extra RAP is quite a bit. I concur tho that this is a sad gradual "nerfing" of the CMs, the abundance of gemslots are mostly to blame...